Chairman quits GEL following drug charge

Less than a week after he resigned as president of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA), businessman Charles Herbert, who is facing drug charges, has quit his position as chairman of Goddard Enterprises Limited (GEL), the company has said.

In a statement, GEL said that Herbert “voluntary stepped down as chairman of the Board of GEL with effect from August 7, 2018”.

The resignation comes two weeks after Herbert appeared in court, charged with two other Goddard Enterprises Limited (GEL) employees, with possession with intent to supply, trafficking and the importation of 267 lbs or 121.4 kilogrammes of cannabis with an estimated street value of BDS$534,160 on July 23.

The three men – Herbert, non-executive director Chris Rogers and sailor Walter Oneal Prescod – were arrested after law enforcement authorities boarded Ecstasy, the private yacht owned by GEL.

Herbert, 62 and Rogers 56, have since been released on BDS$400,000 bail while Prescod’s bail has been set at BDS$450,000.

GEL has since named Deputy Chairman William P Putnam, who had been acting as chairman since Herbert’s arrest, as its new chairman and has sought to assure stakeholders and the general public of “its continuing adherence to the highest standards of corporate governance and probity in its business and operations”.

Herbert has maintained his innocence and that of Rogers.

“I first want to assert clearly to the public that we are entirely innocent of all of the charges that have been brought and we have been charged with,” Herbert said after his first court appearance on July 27.